Symposium

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 21, 1999 | by Sarah Brady, | John R. Lott, Jr.

Q: Would new requirements for gun buyers save lives?

Yes: Stop deadly, unregulated sales to minors, at gun shows and on the Internet.

The widespread availability of handguns to criminals and children in this country spurs lethal violence on a frighteningly regular basis. Consider this: In 1996, handguns killed 213 people in Germany, 106 in Canada, 30 in Great Britain -- and 9,390 in the United States. Common-sense controls on gun purchases would save lives by drying up the illegal market for guns that supplies weapons to minors and criminals.

The U.S. Senate recently voted to amend the juvenile-crime bill to include background checks for gun sales at gun shows, an important step in saving lives and a clear and hopeful sign that the National Rifle Association's, or NRA's, stranglehold on Congress finally may be loosening. More than anything else, this makes me sincerely hopeful that by the end of the 106th Congress, common-sense prevention steps such as closing the gunshow loophole, requiring background checks for gun sales over the Internet and raising the age for handgun purchases from 18 to 21 will become law.

Fueled by outrage over the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., a national consensus is building to enact common-sense gun-control legislation. A critical step, as recognized by the Senate's recent actions, is to require background checks on firearm purchases at gun shows. It's a simple idea: "no background check, no gun." Every year an estimated 2,000 to 5,000 gun shows take place across the nation in convention centers, school gymnasiums, fairgrounds and other facilities, paid for and maintained with taxpayer money.

These arms bazaars provide a haven for criminals and illegal gun dealers who want to skirt federal gun laws and buy and sell guns on a cash-and-carry, no-questions-asked basis. The Brady law's five-day waiting period and background check, which has stopped more than 300,000 felons and other prohibited persons from buying firearms, currently applies to licensed gun dealers only. The same is true of most state firearm background checks.

At gun shows, however, it is perfectly legal in most states and under federal law for individuals to sell guns from their "private collections" without a waiting period or background check on the purchaser. Mean while, licensed firearm dealers operating at these same shows must comply with all rules regarding background checks and waiting periods. Many unscrupulous gun dealers exploit this loophole to operate full-fledged businesses without following federal gun laws. Since so many sales occurring at gun shows are essentially unregulated, law enforcement has found that guns obtained at these shows that are later used in crimes are difficult, if not impossible, to trace.

The list of those who got their guns through transactions at gun shows includes the Oklahoma City bomber; Branch Davidian leader David Koresh; Gian Luigi Ferri, the madman who killed 8 people in a shooting spree at a San Francisco law firm in 1993; and the Columbine shooters. A recent report on gun shows by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Department of Justice found that 46 percent of the investigations involving gun shows were of felons buying or selling guns. In more than a third of these investigations, firearms were known to have been used in subsequent crimes. The volume of firearms transferred illegally at gun shows is astounding. The 314 investigations reviewed for the study involved more than 54,000 firearms, and more than a third of the investigations involved more than 50 firearms.

The principle of "no background check, no gun" should apply not only to gun shows but to Internet sales. Too many unlicensed gun dealers are creating a small but growing market for guns on the Internet. The gun-show loophole appears to be a much bigger problem but, in the long run, we will need to take a closer look at the Internet "auction" houses. The truth is, we just don't know how many guns are being sold to illegal purchasers via the Internet, but we'd have a safer nation if we had a system of "no background check, no gun."

According to the National Opinion Research Center, 80 percent of the public agrees with the idea of this simple premise. Sixty-six percent of gun owners agree. Retail gun dealers agree, and even Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert appears to agree. Echoing the opinion of the National Alliance of Stocking Gun Dealers during the Senate debate on gun amendments, the speaker said, "I think there needs to be uniformity in what they do at gun shows and what they do in a retail business." Hastert also backed the common-sense idea that the age to purchase handguns and alcohol should be standardized at 21 years of age. Currently, an 18-year-old legally can purchase a handgun from an unlicensed dealer. Recent crime data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms showed that of guns traced in 27 cities for which the age of the possessor was known, the most frequent age of gun possession was 19, followed by 18. In 1997, 22 percent of all arrests for murder were 18-to-20-year-olds. The combination of 18-to-20-year-old handgun buyers and unlicensed, unregulated sales at gun shows and over the Internet is a time bomb that Capitol Hill can easily defuse.